Saturday, July 30, 2016

The Agitators Shall Not Inherit the World

What we know from history, and what we know from the current situation, we are seeing a rise in right-wing extremism, not just in the United States, and it’s not just Donald Trump, it’s also throughout countries in Europe. What is driving this? It is policies like NAFTA, like globalization, like the dominance of the banks, like the Wall Street bailouts, like the Wall Street meltdown thanks to deregulation. Who gave us those policies? The Clintons were leading the way on those policies! The answer to neofascism is stopping neoliberalism. Putting another Clinton in the White House will fan the flames of this right-wing extremism. We have known that for a long time ever since Nazi Germany. We are going to stand up to Donald Trump and to stand up to Hillary Clinton!

NAFTA and TPP might have negative repercussions for America’s workers, but they benefit workers elsewhere, and not just the capitalists everywhere. As such, opposing them might be good for some in the American working class, but not so good for working classes elsewhere. In this hyper-connected world, thinking solely in terms of what’s beneficial to our working and middle classes irrespective of impact on others is a recipe for disaster. There’s no more room for an America First agenda in that sense. On the other hand, forging ahead with agreements like NAFTA and TPP without preparing for the negative fallouts they might have on certain communities shirks the responsibility that governments on the state and federal levels have towards these communities. Fragile communities need to be identified beforehand, and timely programs for helping them cope with the change need to be introduced. This should be the focus of our lobbying activities. TPP and similar treaties create more economic interdependency between nations, and that’s a good thing. Opposition to them feeds populist undercurrents which, in turn, facilitate the rise of troubling figures like Donald Trump to the fore. The Jill Steins and Bernie Sanders of the world can agitate, but they are people like Donald Trump that can reap the rewards.

Go ahead, patronize me!

About Ammar

Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian-American author and pro-democracy activist based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is the founder of the Tharwa Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to democracy promotion. His personal website and entries from his older blogs can be accessed here.

The Delirica

The Delirica is a companion blog to the Daily Digest of Global Delirium meant to highlight certain DDGD items by publishing them as separate posts. Also, the Delirica republishes articles by Ammar that appeared on other sites since 2016. Older articles can be found on Ammar's internet archive: Ammar.World